From: lew.pitcher@digitalfreehold.ca   
      
   On Thu, 08 Aug 2024 22:55:07 +0000, Joseph Rosevear wrote:   
      
   > On Tue, 6 Aug 2024 17:41:47 -0000 (UTC), Lew Pitcher wrote:   
   >   
   >> Probably not. I haven't looked at what the -class and -u8 options to   
   >> xterm do to the display, but your problem was strictly related to the   
   >> choice of font.   
   >>   
   >>> So what was going on? And why did uxterm contain code that I didn't   
   >>> need?   
   >>   
   >> Because uxterm does more than support /your/ needs, so it includes code   
   >> to support a wide variety of needs as well.   
   >   
   > I appreciate your taking a crack at an answer!   
   >   
   > FWIW I decided to go with what I had.  It seemed I got success with my   
   > scripts that called xterm when I used DejaVu Sans Mono.  My life was made   
   > complicated, however when I tried to embody that choice of font in a   
   > variable.  It occured to me that that was what the user really needed--a   
   > way to work with my scripts yet still have control over the font.   
   >   
   > I found that this worked in my .fvwm2rc:   
   >   
   >    SetEnv font "-fa DejaVuSansMono -fs 9"   
   >   
   > And the value assigned to variable "font" was then available in my   
   > scripts.  So the problem was solved.   
   >   
   > Note however that I used "DejaVuSansMono" and not "'DejaVu Sans Mono'".   
   > That was the complication I referred to above.  Removing the single   
   > quotes and the spaces in the font name was a simple, but not obvious   
   > solution.   
      
   Yah. X11 fonts are like that. Mostly because modern X11 installations   
   use two types of fonts, of which only one is native to X11.   
      
   The DeJaVu fonts are the /other/ type of font, and need an X11 "extension"   
   to be usable in X11.   
      
   I mentioned the /usr/share/fonts/misc/fonts.alias file, which translates   
   an X11 font alias into an X11 font name. Well, for the TrueType fonts   
   (of which the DeJaVu fonts are one set of examples), there are two more   
   translation files:   
     /usr/share/fonts/TTF/fonts.dir and /usr/share/fonts/TTF/fonts.scale   
      
   These files, along with the xft font rendering extension, allow X11 to   
   display characters with one of the TrueType fonts. And, in these two   
   files is where those spaces get lost (and found).   
      
   For instance, the Truetype font file is "DejaVuSans.ttf" (no spaces),   
   which the fonts.dir and fonts.scale file "translate" into various   
   X11 font names like  -misc-dejavu sans-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso10646-1   
   (note the spaces).   
      
   Older X11 applications will use the X11 font name, while newer applications   
   may use the TTF font name, or even the name /embedded within/ the truetype   
   font.   
      
      
   > I thought you would like to see where this bunny trail went.  So there   
   > you are!   
      
   That's what you get for taking the Red pill :-)   
   Welcome to the Matrix   
   8-)   
      
      
   > Thanks for your help!   
   >   
   > -Joe   
      
      
      
      
   --   
   Lew Pitcher   
   "In Skills We Trust"   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)